A Robin's Knight
by DaughterOfWarCHB
Summary: She was always sarcastic, violent, and mostly sadistic at times. He was always violent, ruthless, and arrogant. Never have these two paths crossed, so whats in store for the world when they do?
1. Chapter 1

It had been rather windy that night; unusual, even for such a gloomy city, a city shrouded in terror.

It had been rather windy that night; even for such a gloomy city.

Mixed with the shadows, the sound of the salty waves crashing against the pier, the bustling city sounds, the astounding lights, and the crispy night air, it was a magnificent view.

Though, if you even knew the half of it, the once-beautiful city turned into a nightmare, a maze with no escape, a battle never won.

Gotham always was the center of the war; the war between good and evil, that is. The masked vigilantes that fought the good fight, against those whose greatest goal was terror and destruction. Eventually, the lines blurred together, something that the citizens of the beautifully terrible city had grown accustomed too. And with the madness, they embraced it, in actuality. They realized there was no good without evil, no light without dark, no order without chaos, no organization without madness.

It was this that caused them to stay, to try and either help or destroy the city. Some were just there for the money; no matter the outcome, they didn't care as long as they satisfied they're greedy mind. Some stayed out of hope; hope that order could be restored and they wouldn't have to barricade they're windows and doors at night. Just the simply reality smacked them all in the face at times; Gotham was the home of madmen, and the symbol of the world's hope.

These thoughts surrounded a teen girl watching over Gotham harbor's shipping area. She wished she had the beauty of being innocent again; oblivious of the world's sins and chaos. Though, that is to say that she was ever innocent in the first place.

She couldn't exactly say she was one of the people fighting the good fight, but she couldn't say she fought only for madness and destruction to rule. No, she fought for whatever side offered her the most, the side that was desperate enough to come to her.

Apparently, Lady Knight was the only one who could complete the job. That was a lie, that she knew, but 20,000 dollars assured no questions.

She watched the cargo ship which carried her objective slowly steer into the harbor, where there were at least 25 armed guards that seemed like complete idiots to her, thinking they could handle the weapons they grasp correctly, like someone who had used them all their life.

A slight misdirection in the wind turned her senses on high alert. Normally, she wouldn't care about this at all, since the Gotham wind blew in every different direction, but she was in a high roof-top meaning the Gotham wind only switched direction every once in a while.

Someone placed their hand on her shoulder, roughly turning it to face the other direction. Lady Knight was ready for this; reflexes do pay off she's learned, and held a throwing star to the throat of her unknown assailant. Her assailant either anticipated this, or they were already planning on putting a katana to her throat.

'An unavoidable annoyance. That's all.' Lady Knight thought as she narrowed her eyes, analyzing her future opponent.

Said person had turned out to be a make, around her age, Lady Knight deducted. He had a scowl and mask not unlike her own, with a cape and hood that were black on the outside, while yellow on the inside. He also had a red armored uniform, with an infamous 'R' logo that made Lady Knight's job that much harder. In addition to that, he had black pants that went surprisingly well with the bright green boots that had red laces adorning his feet.

How she managed to analyze this much with a katana pointed to her throat and a throwing star pointed to Batman's infamous partner, she didn't know.

"Is this supposed to intimidate me? If I remember correctly, Batman does not allow any of his partners to kill," Lady Knight asked, her tone icy and cold, much like the Gotham bay at this time of the year.

Robin growled, and his scowl deepened, which should be impossible in itself. Instead of acknowledging her comment any further, he asked a question of his own; "Who are you?"

Lady Knight let out a laugh, though it was a bitter sweet one, and answered, "Lady Knight, at your service! Actually, not your service, but whoever hires me."

Robin seemed to ponder on the name, most likely racking his memory to find a connection to her name and a file on the Bat-Computer of his. This gave her the time she needed to move out of the range of his katana, and to turn the direction of her throwing star to hit his leg, to which he responded by yelling a few words that most definitely inappropriate in a language that Lady Knight recognized as Arabic.

'Huh. Maybe he trained with the League? It explains why Robin used a katana, and why he knows Arabic.' Lady Knight thought as she ran, before realizing that she didn't have much space before the roof-top ended and she had to jump onto the ground, which was 28 feet down, mind you.

She cursed softly under her breath, and took a breath as she jumped off the building, spreading her arms out like a bird would as she listened to the familiar sound of the wind in her ears before snapping back to reality, tucking and rolling as to not break her ankles on the impact of the ground.

After getting up from that, she ran until she came across at least half the men she was supposed to stop, who were off guard and talking.

"These guys are dumber than I thought. Who the hell leaves the safety on a gun anymore?" Lady Knight muttered as she ran straight into the group of men, who looked at her with shock evident in their features before apparently coming to their senses and fumbling with the guns in their hands.

Lady Knight used that distraction to grab a match and light it. What the thugs didn't realize was that the alcohol they were bringing and spilling had made a line connecting to each one of them, and alcohol was almost as flammable as gasoline.  
Before dropping the match, Lady Knight whispered what would be the last words the thugs ever heard besides screams of agony, "Burn bitches, burn."

By the time all the things were on fire, Robin had come back into Lady Knight's field of vision, so she started running towards where the rest of the men were.

The other groups of men, which she couldn't exactly call a group of men, since there were a few women included in the mix, were much more alert. They probably weren't before Lady Knight had set fire to their friends, but that was a subject matter for a different time.

They may have been much more alert and ready, but that didn't mean they were any smarter. They still had the safety on the guns, making it obvious the bunch was new to the Gotham drug trade. Guess they haven't met the bat yet! Then again, neither has she, and she doesn't plan to anytime soon. Too much effort for too little money.

"Excuse me, yeah; I'll see you in hell!" Lady Knight shouted, knowing that the people unloading the cargo couldn't hear, and this was the last group of guards so she didn't have to be quiet. Like she was with the first bunch.

While moving and saying these, Lady Knight was also hitting them in their arms, legs, head it heart with her throwing stars, which were engraved with the initials 'LK' so everyone knew these dead idiots were her victims. Good for getting praise in the criminal's underworld, not so much when it came to the Justice League and the inferior police.

Robin couldn't enter the mess of things and a mercenary-for-hire without having to dodge bullets, and crowbars. Some of the thugs had successfully gotten the safety off and were now shooting at both Lady Knight and Robin, while some just gave up in the confusion and grabbed the nearest deadly projectile, which happened to be crowbars.

"Can't get me now!" Last Knight laughed, before pulling out a concealed dagger and stabbing a woman who was getting a little too close for her liking.

When she pulled her dagger back out, the sticky substance known as blood coated it, though only lightly as she had barely nicked the women's shoulder, but one it was enough to kill the women since Lady Knight always likedto be prepared and had poison coating her daggers and throwing stars. Sucks for her victims, but her, not nearly as much.

Robin, in the corner of her eye Lady Knight saw, had entered the battle and was lashing out with his katana in non-lethal areas, something Lady Knight would've reprimanded had she not been doing with her own mess of idiots at the time.

Now that she thought about it, wasn't there originally 25 thugs? She set fire to about 10, and had killed at least 8 of the people in this group, while Robin at least 7, which made exactly 25, though Lady Knight was currently dealing with 12 men in total, Robin 8. Where were they coming from?

That's when it dawned on her, these guys weren't regular street thugs, she would've defeated and them by now if they were, they were hired guns who were acting dumb to make it SEEM like they were regular idiots. No, they were trained idiots.  
Now, Lady Knight wasn't getting paid enough to deal with hired guns, but since she already got herself into the mess, she would have to confront Penguin about it later, right now she had to fight.

Somehow, and against her will, Robin and she had moved back to back, slashing and slicing at the not-so-normal thugs that were causing them so much trouble. Somewhere along the line, Lady Knight had also taken the twin katana of the one Robin was holding, out of its sheath on his back. He had frowned and growled at that, but Lady Knight found it amusing that he was so aggressive over the littlest things, though she couldn't deny she was also like that at times. Actually, Lady Knight thought that Robin acted like this all the time, on a hunch she guessed.

"Having fun?" Lady Knight grunted as she stabbed a man in the stomach after kicking him in the stomach.

"Not really!" Robin responded before spinning and using the hilt of his katana to knock a man out, "It'd be better, if you stopped killing the imbiciles that could have information!"

"No these are hired guns. Given the right price, they won't ask any questions. They probably just know to protect that cargo ship and that's basically it" Lady Knight informed, this time killing a man by stabbing him in the head with Robin's katana.  
"-Tt-Either way, killing them won't do any good." Robin retorted, and Lady Knight imagined he would have crossed his arms had they not been in the midst of battle.

"Besides the fact that now there's less scum on the earth, and I'm reducing over population?" Lady Knight muttered to herself, but had no doubt the partner of Batman would hear it.

"Just work." Apparently, Robin always had to have the last word. Nonetheless, Lady Knight kept doing what she was doing.  
About a minute later, the last of the men had surrounded them, grinning like fools as they aimed their guns at the mercenary and the vigilante, as well as the crowbars that proved basically useless in the battle they were having.

Making eye contact, well, not exactly, given they were both wearing domino mask, they made up a way to both get themselves out of the situation alive, ignoring the fact they were likely to go back to fighting once the battle was over.

At the exact same moment, both the teenagers dropped to the concrete ground and rolled out of the circle of idiots, just as the gun fire began. The idiot men ended up shooting each other, which Robin seemed much too comfortable with those imbiciles killing each other to be the usual anti-killing vigilante Gotham seems to love.

The remaining men, those who didn't have a gun but instead a crow bar, were simultaneously taken out by simple means by both Robin and Lady Knight.

"Well I guess you aren't afraid of a few casualties." Lady Knight commented, and, in a friendly gesture (Even though he was probably going to still try and put her in Black Gate), handed him his own blood stained katana.

Robin grunted and crossed his arms, but did take the katana and wiped off the blood with a cloth he got from who knows where before putting the sword in its sheath.

"Okay, let's not fight each other...Until later." Lady Knight suggested putting her hand out for him to shake, "I want to find out why they needed hired guns for a simple drug shipment. It'd be easier to do that with you around, wouldn't it? And I would expect you weren't sent here because it was a usual drug bust, I've heard the Bats usually let Red Hood handle this kinda thing."

With a sigh, Robin hesitantly put his hand out, and shook hands with his new ally. In that wouldn't last a while, of course, but an ally for the time being. He only trusted her word though, because if she was who he thought he was, Lady Knight wouldn't back out of a deal.

"Let's go." Robin said stiffly, his slightly torn cape fluttering in the wind, before he jumped up to the platform that ultimately led to the cargo ship.

"I'm not getting paid enough for this..." Lady Knight mumbled, but followed suit.


	2. Chapter 2

The cargo ship wasn't much of a site at first glance, but then again, that's at first glance.

In reality, most of Gotham's cargo ships were just drug shipments, and everyone knew that, yet no one uttered a word about it.

Something had felt off to Lady Knight since she had found out that the thugs they had been fighting against were hired guns, but she didn't read much into the feeling until now, where she had a moment of silence on the platform that Robin had had them jump to.

Then, she heard it. She couldn't identify it at first, but she heard the sound of wailing and drumming. No, not drumming, Lady Knight realized, but pounding.

She put one hand out, and held the other to her lips, and listened. This caused Robin to give her strange looks but he didn't ask questions and just listened, as she had wanted him to.

"Hear it?" Lady Knight asked quietly, and then pointed to the cargo crates that were sitting in a line by the edge of the boat, where the pounding noise was coming from.

"-Tt- Of course I do. I'm not deaf." Robin scowled, "But those sound like children. But why would they need children?"

Lady Knight shrugged, "Child trafficking I guess. But why would Penguin pay me to stop a child trafficking ring?"

Robin didn't seem to be listening, he was muttering things under his breath while his eyes scanned whatever was on the screen of his holo-computer before he turned to her, "This might have something to do with all the disappearances of street kids in the past 3 or 4 months."

Lady Knight nodded, before remembering something she had heard back in Central and Star the last time she had worked a job there, which wasn't too long ago, "Central as Star city are having the same problem. This is one of the largest organized trafficking rings in a while if these disappearances really are connected, but what are they doing with them? Putting children in shipping crates isn't exactly what child trafficking usually does when they plan to sell to the highest bidder. They usually want the kids in peak condition."

Robin frowned at her, and gave her a 'are you dumb' look, "Obviously it's a large trafficking ring. And new player, new conditions. Maybe this guy doesn't care about roughing the kids up."

Lady Knight nodded thoughtfully at his response, purposefully ignoring the confidence and rudeness in his tone. "I guess we'll just have to find out then!"  
Hopping up onto deck, which wasn't too far above her head, Lady Knight spotted a few crates that had been filled with rotten apples, that were placed against the side of a the Captain's room wall, a perfect vantage point for her to scope everything out while no one would spot her.

"C'mon, let's not waste time," Lady Knight whispered to Robin, before silently making her way over to the Apple crates and jumping on to the roof.

She didn't exactly pay attention to what Robin was doing, only because she trusted he would stick to his word, and he had enough skill to pull off why she was asking of him.

Robin did come crouch beside her and looked where she was looking, which was at the crates of children, before tapping a few buttons she didn't even know we're on his mask, probably allowing him to see inside the shipping crates.

This reminded Lady Knight of the X-Ray mode on her own mask, which she tapped and scanned inside the crates. "35 in total...There we're 76 missing case files, they must've delivered the other children already..."

Robin, for once, didn't respond to her comment and just nodded in agreement. They sat in silence, both trying to analyze the situation they had gotten themselves on, when a snippet of a conversation that seemed to be in the room under the roof they were sitting.

Lady Knight didn't say anything, just gave Robin a look and put her ear to the roof. It must've looked stupid, but Robin followed her lead and they caught an important part of a muffled conversation.

"We need to get these kids to the boss, ASAP. He says they need to be trained as soon as possible, and we all know how boss gets when he's angry."

"I know! But we have to be cautious, I thought I heard something's outside and boss will skin me alive if the Bat doesn't already."

"Just hurry up! The sooner we finish this, the sooner the kids turn into soldiers, the sooner we get to go free-"

By then, both vigilante and mercenary had stopped listening. "What the fuck do they mean, ',the sooner the kids turn into soldiers?" Lady Knight asked quietly, her mouth parted in shock.

"Only one way to find out." Robin responded, his posture showing his determination, as well as his ego.

"And that would be?" Lady Knight snapped impatiently. People seriously could just get to the point, she didn't like it when they didn't.

"We go with them." Robin answered, "And not as this. Civilians would work much better."

"That would involve revealing identities." Lady Knight pointed out in a duh tone, "And I still don't like you very much."

"-tt- I'm not a fan of yours either, but it's revealing identities, or going in costume and getting caught and imprisoned the moment we arrive at whatever the destination is." Robin explained, already making a move to take his mask off.

Lady Knight presses her lips into a fine line, thinking of the pros and cons of the situation Robin was implying. There were no pros, but that just made her gut tell her to go along with the deal, "Fine."

She herself reached for her mask, when Robin removed his. "Damian Wayne? I don't hear much news, but I think I head of you somewhere. Honestly, I'm not surprised this happened..."

Lady Knight was muttering all this, while she removed her mask. Her mask was also a domino, so it was rather easy. Not a quality she enjoyed. "Not really nice to meet you, I'm Skylar Elliot. Now, let's go and pretend to be helpless children who escaped the crates only to be captured and thrown into a crate!"

Robin looked down, seeing the costume, "Forgetting something, Elliot? We can't exactly walk out like this. I hope you have a spare change of clothes..."

Skylar knew it was a good idea to have brought her civilian attire with her that night. Opening a pouch inside her cape, she pulled out a wrinkled gray T-shirt and a pair of skinny jeans, before jumping into the platform they had once been on, that Damian couldn't see, to change.

By the time she came back, Damian had changed into a black turtle neck and black jeans, but had messed up his hair to make it seem more realistic. Actually, the only reason the freshly pressed clothes seemed 'kidnap' ready was because Damian was already covered in both dirt and grime from their fight with the hired guns, and Damian must've gotten that dirt and grime onto the clothes as he out them on.

"-Tt- I simply cannot believe I have to act as merely a child..." Damian muttered in disgust, right as both him and Skylar were about to get in position to begin their basically thought up on the spot plan.

"If I may remind you, Wayne, we're both like 13, technically we're both still considered children," Skylar pointed out, matter-of-factly, before getting into position, basically sitting by the rotten Apple crates, and pretending to cry and seem exhausted.

"Idiot..." Damian replied before he too, got into position, which was him sitting by Skylar and pretending to be exhausted and beaten, which caused a guard to come over.


	3. Chapter 3

The guard walked over, and both Skylar and Damian pretended to be horrible traumatized at being found, which anyone who knew either Skylar it Damian knew was near the exact opposite.

The guard snarled at them, with rotten yellow teeth almost making Skylar his in disgust, instead, though, she played it off as a whimper of pain. Yeah, right. Because she was totally hurt...

Actually, now that her adrenaline is wearing off, she felt the exhaustion of the battle wash over her, and felt a stinging sensation in her shoulder, tight about where her shoulder blades are.

Looking down, and once again playing it off as a sign if surrender, she saw that she had dislocated her shoulder, and broke her wrist, which she hadn't done in a long time...That didn't mean it didn't hurt like hell, though.

Damian seemed to be in the same predicament. The tiredness from his Battle catching up to him, and a flare if pain made itself know in Damian's thigh, where Skylar had thrown her ninja star. Wait, why isn't he dying? Aren't Skylar's knives and weapons coated in poison? Not right now. Right now, he was analyzing his injuries, somehow seeming 'innocent and traumatized' as well to keep up the act. He had multiple bruises, a gash in his ankle which he had no idea how he had gotten it, and the thigh wound on his opposite leg.

He supposed he wasn't bleeding out because she thought it would end been good to wrap up anything that looked major before getting into position, something he was very grateful of that as of this moment.

"Pu-Ph-Please!" Skylar fake cried, sobbing into her grimy hands.

Damian, on the other hand, proceeded to look shocked and terrified at the man, and scooted back while whimpering. Man, he was glad that his mother had made him take those acting lessons, pretending to be helpless when he can't kick their heads out of there asses was hard! Well, hard for him at least. He was, after all,basically trained to speak his mind until three years ago, when Batman had taken him under his wing (Damian's 13, and yeah, that was an amazing pun. Don't Judge...).

The guard, if you could even call the pathetic excuse for a man that, just smirked cruelly, and grabbed them by the scruff of their necks, like you would a kitten.

It wasn't their fault they were so small! Nonetheless, the guard them basically grabbed them to a crate, except this one was further away from the others and on the edge of the ship, looking like it might fall over.

"This is what we do to little tyrants like you!" The guard snarled, throwing them into the almost tipping crate before sealing the 'to' shut.

Looking up, both Damian and Skylar saw tiny holes pressed into the roof if the crate, giving them air and only enough moon light to see each other, but only barely.

They quickly realized they were the only ones in this said crate, probably because the others were too terrified to escape, or they didn't have enough room to maneuver around in those crates.  
"So...What now?" Skylar asked, sitting with her legs crossed on one side with her head hanging low.

"-tt- I do not know, Elliot, this was you're plan after all," Damian replied, looking at what little moon light illuminated the inside of the actually quite spacious crate.

"Meh," Skylar shrugged, "I usually never actually plan going THROUGH with the plan."

"That is one of the most idiotic things I have ever heard." Damian reprimanded, with his signature scowl ever so present on his face.

"Actually, in hindsight, it's a good thing because it shows that I have many different plans, that have many different outcomes," Skylar corrected, pointing at Damian.

"Whatever you want to believe, Elliot." Damian muttered, crossing his arms.

After that, they stayed in silence, listening to the waves crashing against the hull and the sound of creaking when the crate was in danger if tipping g. To normal kids, this would probably be terrifying, but both Damian and Skylar had been through worse. Not that they would ever, EVER, tell anyone of those experiences.

Slowly, the dim moon light turned into relatively bright sunlight, causing both kids to squint, and sigh.

"You think they know you're missing by now?" Skylar asked, her tone only curious, though that didn't seem to be a norm for her, Damian had picked up on that.

"Who?" He responded blandly, his head between his knees. He missed being able to try and mutilate someone, and it hadn't even been a whole day!

"You're brothers. Duh. Who else?" Skylar responded rhetorically, though it seemed a little half-hearted

"Probably not. I have a...tendency to sneak out. This is nothing." Damian answered, and there was a slight wary tone to his voice that made Skylar wonder if Damian's brothers gave him enough, uhh... What's the word? Attention? Yeah, that's it. She wondered if Damian got enough...attention...at the infamous Wayne Manor. The thought seemed so foreign to her, so she let that thought be.

She only hummed in response, and they once again went back to the oddly comfortable silence.

Eventually, after another day or so, they were roughly dragged out. They were malnourished, but that's to be expected. They had gotten little portions for dinner and breakfast, but that was about it. Wasn't the worst they've ever had.

Putting on the 'terrified Child' facade was rather hard for them, seeing as they were used to being up front and personal, but not impossible.

The only thing that really made them keep up the facades was knowing they could solve whatever this was and them part ways.

Trust him, Damian wanted as far away from Skylar as possible. For one, he didn't really like people in general, two, she knew his identity and he'd rather her not, and three, she reminded him of something he couldn't remember... something important.

Skylar, on the other hand, was both perplexed and confused. Damian didn't seem to know her, and she didn't know him, but he reminded her of something, something see couldn't exactly place her finger on, and she didn't like not knowing things. Just as well, Damian and she seemed to be able to communicate without talking, and it made her frustrated that she didn't know why.

How they all realized this while being grabbed by the scruff of their necks after getting thrown out of a seaborne shipping crate really was a mystery, but they've learned to not question it. They seemed to work better with chaos surrounding them, anyways.

They stayed quiet, well, as quiet as they could get when they had to act like petrified, whimpering, injured teenagers. So basically, how they were supposed to act for their age.

Skylar was thinking about how she's never going to get the money Penguin owes her freely, now that she hasn't done what was asked, but who could she blame? She was always curious. But, as everyone knows, curiosity killed the cat.

Damian was thinking about if his brothers would've noticed his absence. Probably not. By now, they should be used to him disappearing for days, sometimes been weeks, on end. During those times he was usually staying with his team back in HQ, but they didn't know that.

The two guards that were holding them eventually parted ways at a crossroads, the guard holding Damian going left, a d the guard holding Skylar going right.

They probably should have thought about what would happen if they were separated...Regardless, they were on their own now and had to hope to God that the other had the same plans as them, which had about a 1 in a billion chance that would ever happen. Yay them. Note the obvious sarcasm.

Damian already had come up with a plan on the fly, analyzing his surroundings and his chances of being able to fight off the guards. Believe it or not, he actually knew he had limits. Sometimes...  
Damian was taken to what looked like a miniature jail in want he guess was the East Wing if the palace looking building he was brought into.

The worst part about it was that he did get a look of the building and its surroundings while he was producing fake tears at being 'kidnapped' but the only thing he saw other than the palace like building was water. Lots and lots of water. Which meant he was on an island, and that meant that he couldn't just escape like he had previously planned to.

The East Wing actually was a miniature prison it seemed, except all the inmates were boys ranging from the ages of 2-13, which meant that Damian was one of the oldest here. The bad part of that was that whoever had assigned the men to 'kidnap' them, was going to be hardest on the oldest to make an impression on the youngest about what would happen if they misbehave, that was common logic. You find the guy in charge, take him on, and then you rule the pack.

Skylar was led down the West Wing, and that also seemed to be a miniature prison, except the prisoners were all girls. She also seemed to realize that she was one of oldest, and the disadvantages that came with that.

She was roughly thrown into a cell with someone else, another girl around her age, and Skylar realized how much harder her make-shift mission was going to end up being.


	4. Chapter 4

Damian was thrown into an empty cell, something he was glad about because that meant he had some free time to think without anyone questioning why he wasn't completely disturbed and traumatized at being thrown into a cell on an island after being stuffed in a shipping crate for 2 days. Actually, he was wondering that himself but it saved him a lot of confusion to just not question it.

He had gotten up, and went to start pacing in the relatively small cell until he almost fell over had he not grabbed the wall before hitting the ground.

He growled and looked down, before seeing the ankle wound that he had discovered, and forgotten about, earlier. The cloth tie that had been stopping the bleeding now had red seeping through it, and that was the moment when Damian realized that his injury was going to get one nasty infection that would render him unable to fight unless he got the bandage changed, and hopefully get the wound sterilized with rubbing alcohol. Though, regular alcohol would work too.

He hissed, and sat down on the small, uncomfortable metal cot that he was provided with. He looked at his ankle wound, before gently removing the torn part of his cape that he had used as a cloth. It hurt like hell, there was no doubt about that, but Damian had other things to deal than the seating pain in his ankle.

He tore a piece of his jeans of, which was oddly hard for such a non-durable material. Damian wished he had some sort of liquid that would disinfect his wound, bit you win some and you lose some, and he win a make-shift bandage, no so much a disinfectant.

Wrapping it up he couldn't help but hiss a little, and that was when he realized that it was going to be a nightmare to try and escape. Yay him.

Just as he was finishing, and just placing his injured foot on the concrete ground, someone else was thrown in with him.

What great luck that Damian was having! Just a peachy, regular day with the sun shining and waffles all around! Yeah, like such things existed.

Looking up, and fully prepared to tell off and glare at, his new cell mate, Damian made a shocking recovery.

His new cellmate, was Jon Kent, the new Superboy and half-Kryptonion.

Jon didn't appear to have any injuries, but that's to be expected since he was, after all, Superman's son.

"What are you doing here?!" Damian whisper-shouted once the guard that had thrown Jon in the cell was long gone.

"The team and I hadn't heard from you, and we tracked you here?" Jon replied, grinning with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"This is a child trafficking ring! Why are you smiling?" Damian asked, his tone cold and unforgiving, like a storm on a winter's night.

Jon looked mildly dejected, bit brushed it off and kept talking, "-And we thought it would be awesome if we came on a rescue mission!"  
Slowly, the smile on Jon's face disappeared, "But we didn't know we would be caught..."

"-Tt- You're an idiot sometimes, Kent." Damian retorted, crossing his arms and just sat, thinking of how the hell he was going to get both him and Skylar, as well as what he guessed was his entire team, out. Hooray for him. Not.

Meanwhile, Skylar was examining her new cell mate.

She had fiery red hair, and freckles, but she was battered and bruised, so Skylar didn't really know hear to make of the ginger.  
So, she decided to just be blunt about it. "And you are?"

The ginger grinned, which wasn't exactly how you were supposed to react to being kidnapped and thrown in a cell with a stranger, but then again, something seemed off about the red head anyway.

"Iris West, but you can call me Irey!" The red head introduced, holding her hand out for Skylar to shake.

She did, begrudgingly though. "Skylar Elliot."

The latter seemed excited, once again unusual, so right when Skylar was about to pull away from shaking the hand of the person that had been shaking her hand to long, she was surprised when the latter super sped to the small metal cot.

"Wait, what?" Skylar asked, trying not to look gob smacked, and failing.

"Oops?" Irey said questioningly, making a guilty face, "I'm not supposed to do that with people around...But now that you know, I'm Impulse!"

Skylar didn't know why, because she usually liked not many people knowing her identity, but she had a gut feeling that she should trust Irey, and her gut was never wrong, "Well, then, nice to formally meet you, Impulse. I'm Lady Knight."

Irey's jaw dropped. "The Lady Knight? Oh my gosh I've heard all about you! But aren't you a villain...?"

"No. Yes. Maybe. Whoever pays more." Skylar shrugged, before wincing and looking down at her shoulder.

She went to reach up and touch it, but when she moved her hand to do that thing, a fiery pain erupted on her wrist and made her hiss in pain.

"Right. Dislocated shoulder and broken wrist. Ouch." She muttered, walking back towards the wall and pressing the head against the cinderblock.

"Why are you here? I didn't think it was possible to kidnap someone like you!" Irey asked curiously, cocking her head to the side and tapping her foot at near light speed. Oh, that was going to get annoying, Skylar knew that for sure.

"I'm _here_ , because I chose to be," Skylar gave Irey a pointed look, "A...And acquaintance of mine had the brilliant idea to find out more about this new threat."

As an afterthought, and a curious look from Irey, Skylar added, "Wait...it was my brilliant idea to come here...Man, I am an IDIOT at times..."

Irey, apparently thinking that since Skylar explained why she was there, that Irey had to justify her reasons as well, explained, "I'm here because one of my friends and teammates, Robin, hadn't been reporting in a while so we tracked him here! Though, getting captured was NOT on the mission agenda..."

"When is it ever?" Skylar sighed, gingerly going to face palm before wincing and remembering that both her wrist and shoulder would disagree with that.

Basically, her injuries not only rendered her left arm useless, they also restricted her chances of survival, which were already at an all-time low. "And, also, Wayne is a twat. He's on the other side of the building, I think, I heard from one of the guards they were keeping all the guy prisoners there."

"Escaping is going to be really, really, hard..." Irey muttered, trying to brush dust off of her violet shirt, though that was a hopeless cause considering that there was mud marking it as close to a camouflage.

"Well obviously!" Skylar snapped, going back to laying her head on the wall, and clasped her hands together gently as to not hurt her wrist. (that was becoming harder and harder. Skylar finally realized how much she depended on her left wrist.)

"You have any other uhh...teammates that are here?" Skylar asked curiously, barely even glancing at her hyperactive cell mate, instead she chose to close her eyes and just comprehend all that's been going on recently.

"Well, of course! There's Superboy, Raven, Abuse-" Irey started listing off before Skylar interrupted her.

"Who the hell names a hero 'Abuse'?"

"Don't know. Ask him." Irey didn't even look slightly agitated that Skylar had interrupted, which was rare. "Anyway, there's Superboy, Abuse, me, Raven, Nightstar, Commander, and Arrowette, and of course Robin!"

"And you all got captured?" Skylar raised an eyebrow at that, finally opening her eyes and looking at the speedster in question.

"Maybe?" Irey answered, shrugging her shoulders with a questioning tone of voice, "We had all split up in groups to find Dami. Jon, err, Superboy, was with me and then we got captured. I can't say the same for the rest of my friends."

Putting up a thumbs up, mockingly of course, Skylar muttered sarcastically; "Great team tactics you got there. Maybe next you can all just take turns jumping off a cliff!"

Irey cocked her head sideways, cluelessly, and was about to say something when a guard shouted, something Skylar was not in the mood for given her current predicament.

"Lights out!" It's not like they have a light switch for the dim, flickering plastic light that threatened to fall any second. Nonetheless, the light went out, and Irey took the liberty to fall asleep on the small metal cot, so Skylar decided that she would just sleep where she was sitting, and hope to gods that she didn't roll over onto her left side when she was getting the very minimal amount of sleep she knew she would inevitably get.

The last thought Skylar had before she drifted off to her nightmare land, was that at least she had back up.


	5. Chapter 5

Skylar awoke to screaming, and it took her a few minutes to realize that the screaming was in fact her own. Awaking to her own screams in the middle night wasn't exactly an unusual feat, it happened quite often actually, but apparently, Irey did not know that.

Irey was staring at her with wide eyes, completely up and awake.

"Skylar, are you okay?" The speedster asked concerned, her eyes meeting Skylar's bleary ones.

"Yeah," Skylar nodded, but added on so that Irey didn't have too much uncertainty, "Its normal by now."

Irey still didn't seem to be convinced, but she dropped the subject while glancing suspiciously at Skylar.

"How do you plan to escape?" Irey asked out of the blue, surprising Skylar which caused her to metaphorically jump. Which hurt her shoulder. Yay her.

Skylar shrugged, then realized her mistake when fire seemed more tame than how much her arm hurt. "I dunno. Winging it, I guess."

Irey snorted, "That's an AMAZING plan you got there."

Skylar glared, and the par then returned to a tense silence. The only sounds were coming from outside the cell, and were probably kids crying. Such a homie place, don't you agree?

Skylar was happy that she woke up in the middle of the night, for once, because the guards came around a little later, about early sun rise, and had a few buckets filled with ice water and roaches to wake them up. At least, that's what Skylar thought they were.

The guards stopped at the cell the two girls are in, but snarled and glared when they saw they were already awake and they didn't have anyone to make miserable.

"What do you think we need to wake up so early for?" Irey whispered over to Skylar, disregarding all rules of whispering and Skylar wouldn't be surprised if the entire palace heard.

"How should I know?" Skylar snapped, not in the mood.

Can you really blame her? She had been kidnapped, on PURPOSE, then stuck in a crate for days, had a dislocated shoulder a broken wrist, and just narrowly avoided being woken up by roaches and ice water being poured over her. Skylar had quite a few reasons to not be in a spectacularly good mood like Irey.  
"Okay, just askin'" Irey replied, this time a little dejectedly, meaning that she was actually quiet for once.

"Just...I'm just not exactly 'happy', okay?" The was Skylar's version of an apology. Though, from what little she knew, she was still better at apologizing than Damian.

Damian...Where was he? How was he? Did he get stuck with another one of his teammates?

"Doesn't matter!" Skylar snapped to herself. Irey didn't even looked surprised.

When Skylar raised a questioning eyebrow at why Irey didn't look surprised, Irey shrugged (Skylar was jealous) and answered, "Damian does that all the time. Talking to have himself without full sentences, I mean."

Before Skylar could find some way to respond to that, the guards came back, with a trail of kids following them. Most of said kids had dead roaches in their hair and were soaked, so Skylar wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

The mechanic cell door opened, so both speedster and mercenary took that as a que to follow.

They were at the back of the lime, which meant that the guards couldn't see them in their line of sight, but also meant that they would be the last to find out what was going in. Besides training children to be soldiers, that is.

They were all led to an auditorium like room, that had a domed glass ceiling to counteract the black polished marble floors.

The two crowds mixed, boys and girls, to fill up all the space in the room. Skylar hoped to see that the person who originally started this makeshift mission with her on the crowd, but she had no such luck.

Damian, on the other hand, was particularly glad that he already woke up at dawn (usually, not when he passes out from exhaustion {it's a long story}).

He took note of his surroundings, though he was using Jon as support and wincing every time too much pressure was brought upon his ankle. It wasn't so bad for his opposite thing wound, bit it stung like hell. Basically, his injuries made sure that 'running' was the one option Damian did NOT want to resort to.

"Children, attention." A voice spoke. Up on the stage, was a man wearing a green dragon mask, with a black suit to counteract the white tie. That was all Damian could see, besides the scars that marred the man's hands.

"I, am DRAGON!" Apparently, the Dragon guy was expecting something other than blank looks.

He growled, which was only heard because of the microphone in his hand. "I am also the reason you are all here-"

The man would've continued, but a firm female voice shouted out, "You mean KIDNAPPED!"

Damian was hoping it wasn't one of his female teammates, or his new 'friend' Skylar. Skylar, because, well, there needs to be someone to keep an eye on Irey and Mar'i in the girls ring. And his female teammates because they were his TEAMMATES. He wasn't THAT cold hearted, thank you very much.

The female voice who spoke, let out a really loud gasp, when beefy looking guards grabbed, and grabbed her onto the stage with Dragon. Damian was happy to see it wasn't anyone he knew, but was also disgusted at what he was sure would follow.

"Apparently, your fellow recruit would like to be a demonstration of what happens when you do not behave yourself." Dragon gestured to the girl, who couldn't have been any older than 8, and was now on the ground in a fetal position.

"Damian, we have to help her!" Jon whispered to Damian, he himself looking in disgust at what was going to be happening.

Damian shook his head, but did not respond as the moment he went to open his mouth, a loud 'thwack' was echoed across the room.

Looking at the source, Damian saw that it had been a whip hitting g the girls back, who let out an agonizing scream of pain after.

The guard had a sadistic smile as he did this multiple times, enjoying every sound of pain that the girl-no, victim- made.

Eventually, well after the girls back was coated in red, and had whip marks all over, the guard stopped and dragged her down and out of the room.

Dragon looked pleased at the now looks of fear he was receiving, and took his sweet time to speak again, making kids fear what was going to come out of his twisted mouth.

"Now, as you can see, this is a no nonsense facility." Dragon gestured to the doorway in which the girl and guard exited, "But shall you follow rules, nothing like that will happen."

"Could you just skip to the point?" Damian muttered, quiet enough that no one besides Jon heard. (Super hearing. That's why.)

"You are here because of a project I have going, and you will do everything I or the guards say without question. They will now escort you to your stations."

"More like prison jobs..." Damian


	6. Chapter 6

The guards escorted Skylar to to a basic prison yard, except instead of shackles and chains and all the stuff you expect at Azkaban, there were tunnels and caves.

The caves were underground, obviously, but there were about 5 of them. Besides that, there were around 8 tunnels that led deeper underground. Seeing the mining equipment, Skylar was glad this was going to be an underground thing; what with the sky being gray and thundering, threatening to rain down all hell to the 'yard' of the palace like building.

Skylar groaned, she didn't want to mine because 1) she was being forced to against her will, that was a huge turndown for any job, and 2) her left arm was basically useless and if she used she, she'd probably fall unconscious because if the pain. To mine, you had to use both arms, as well as hands.

Damian was in the same predicament; his right ankle had a gash in it and hurt like hell, and his left thigh had a throwing star wound. How the fuck was he supposed to mine if he could barely move his legs without hissing in pain? Correct. He cant.

Sadly, regardless of injury, they were to work. And those guards seemed perfectly okay with whipping anyone who was slacking off. These people belong on am asylum if they were this sadistic! Actually, they were probably broken out of that asylum in Star City that had had a riot a few months prior...

Damian limped forward, he was leaning against Jon even though it was a single file line. Like in elementary school.

The guards were numbering off groups of 4 to each tunnel/cave, and Damian calculated that he would end up in the tunnel on the far left with Jon and the twins behind him.

When the time came, the guard smiled sadistically, seeing Damian's injuries, and assigned them to said tunnel, but practically threw all the mining equipment needed for the group at him, which he went to catch before remembering his throbbing injuries.

Because if his leg injuries, Damian fell flat on his face, his nose narrowly avoiding being broken or bruised (which he switched out for a bruised cheek, so it was really a lose-lose situation.), and had a pile of painful mining equipment on top of him that hurt almost as bad as getting shot in the back. Yay him.

In Arabic, Damian cursed out the guard, who didn't understand a thing, but saw the snarling look on the smaller boys face and assumed it was offensive. In retaliation, the guard kicked Damian in the stomach.

Jon, being sympathetic, grabbed the mining equipment off Damian and the brunette twins behind Damian helped him to his feet, to which he dug his nails into their arms to help him stand. Maybe next time he should make sure to not get hurt on BOTH legs. It would be rather helpful in any given situation.

The two twins, at least that's what Damian assumed they were, helped walk Damian to the tunnel, helping him get back up whenever one of his legs buckled.

Damian hated being helpless, his least favorite state, but he admitted (silently) that he could use the help.

Upon entering the tunnel, they saw there was already another group there; the group could tell by the faint yellow glow of a lantern far, far away from the entrance.

Damian groaned; did he really have to walk THAT much farther? The twins helping him seemed to realize this too, and they sighed softly under their breathes (in perfect unison, which freaked Damian up), though it was so quiet that no one normal would've heard it. But then again, Jon had super hearing and Damian was trained to be an assassin until his pyscho mother took him to his father.

While walking, the old-fashioned light the group was given, meaning old lantern, only provided enough light to see around 5 feet in front of them, so they couldn't exactly tell when one of them was about to catch on the edge of a spiked rock wall or anything, which Damian found rather annoying. Because of this, he had let out multiple strings of curses in Arabic, Italian, Greek, and surprisingly Russian.

The twins seemed to recognize when Damian was cursing in Italian, so he wondered whether they were from the country or descended from it. He would've known, had he been able to get a good look at them before he had tools thrown onto him. He was probably going to be sour about that for a while, knowing his personality.

After finally, FINALLY getting down the tunnel far enough to interact with the other group and mine, they stopped. Guards checked down the tunnels and caves every 5 minutes, making sure everyone was doing their job and hoping that they had someone else's skin to blister with a whip.

They set all the equipment up without saying a word, though Damian was constantly hissing and leaning against Jon, who happened to be the only trustworthy person he knew in the area.

They began using the mining tool's to hit the bed of the rock having no idea what they were mining for, but to keep anything valuable they find and give it to the guards who were on the next patrol, but only if it was a large amount. That much was told to them by the same guy who threw mining tools at an injured 13 year old.

"Scott." One of the twins muttered offhandedly, the slightly taller boy with the curlier hair and combat boots.

"Huh?" Jon asked, confused. He still keeping busy, however, as he heard the guards walking towards them before his super hearing randomly disappeared. It happened a lot; him losing and gaining powers at random. It was because he was only an adolescent, so it was already hard to harness his kryptonian powers, but also half human, meaning his human DNA constantly clashed with his human DNA. Rather annoying.

"-tt-It's obviously his name." Damian snapped, still leaning heavily against Jon, who didn't really day anything about it.

"So...Introducing now, ah?" Someone from the other group said, who apparently got the memo of talking while working. Ships really aren't good for anything, except causing pain. In which case it is a perfect weapon for Skylar, though she doubts she would ever see the weapon in the same way again.

"Well, I guess. Anyways, the 'TT' gave it away, so how are ya Damian?" Another, more feminine voice spoke up boldly, though immediately after the chipping of rock was heard.

"Depends on who you are. I don't like strangers knowing my name." Damian retorted, holding the pic axe above his head and hitting it into the rock before his legs could give any sort of say about it.

"I'm not really a stranger, however." The STRANGER responded, clearly not out of breath. "I am the one, after all, who threw a throwing star at your leg. And y'know, revealed my identity so much in the last few days that I'm surprised the Gotham Mayor doesn't know!"

Yup, that sarcasm was irreplaceable. That was Skylar Elliot, the person who sadly got stuck on this journey with the king of doucheyness himself, Damian Wayne.

"Cool! But what do you mean identity?" Jon asked excitedly, happy that someone was up for conversation. The silence was killing him.

"Well, whoever you are who is way to hyper, I'm Skylar Elliot. Though, you might want to know that I'm also Lady Knight." Skylar revealed, before her axe chipped something other than rock. How she was doing it must've took a took on her, since her left arm was limp and out of place, so she was .moving the axe with only her right arm, which seemed like a safety hazard.

"The hell?" Skylar mumbled, dropping the axe (narrowly avoiding her foot, which she was thankful for. She didn't need any more injuries, thank you very much), and using her good arm to dig out whatever she hit.

How she dug whatever it was out of rock, nobody will ever know. "I'm guessing it's a jewel?" One of the twins, Scott, guessed, except he had a rather questioning tone.

"Yeah," Skylar nodded, but nobody saw because of the dim light, "A ruby. I'll point it out to the guards the next time any of us find anything."

"Can we get back to intros?" A rough, male voice that was on the right of Skylar pointed out once she picked up her axe. With extreme difficultly and a lit if pain, mind you.

"Sure," Jon shrugged, but introduced himself nonetheless, "I'm Jon Kent! Though, since Skylar revealed that she's Lady Knight, I'll say that I'm Superboy. Superman's son!"

Either nobody believed him and didn't say anything, or these people had ties to the hero community since no one said anything.

"Scott Jordon...Also a Green Lantern, like my dad." Scott introduced, not taking his eyes off of his job.

"Eliza Jordon." The the other twin started. Since when was she a girl? Well, she's rather burly for a girl, Damian thought. "Except I'm not a Green Lantern. I'm a Violet Lantern. Don't ask."

"Not gonna..." The same voice who asked for them to continue intros muttered, except this time his voice seemed much more light and cheerful, less gravely and rough. "Anyways, I'm Colin Wilkes, A.K.A. Abuse."

"Iris West! Or Impulse. Or Irey. Or anything really!" Irey rambled on the left side of Skylar.

"Damian Wayne. Robin. Take your pick." Damian growled, hitting the tick with note force than necessary. He was really pissed that everyone thought it was 'I'm gonna reveal my secret identity right now when sadistic guards and idiotic maniacs could very well be listening in at hour.

"And to top it off, I'm Mar'i Grayson! I'm also Nightstar!" Mar'i said, right before the guards went through the regular walk through schedule.


	7. Chapter 7

Skylar was already having a bad day, if basically not being able to move her arm and being under the watchful eye of a variety of sadistic armed guards who had already thrown mining supplies directly at her injured arm, so they weren't exactly going to be helpful. But not only that, nope, her day was even WORSE (if that was even possible), since there was a plethora of people, who she only recently learned the name of, who know her secret identity! Why is she even calling it a 'secret' identity anymore?

To top it all off, it was time for the annual, every 5 minute patrol the guards to through, so that meant she had to deal with THOSE assholes and process the fact that literally everyone in their little group has ties in the hero community; a one in a billion chance, which meant there was most likely a traitor in their midst. It was probably one of the twins, since nobody seemed to know them.

The guards, who usually just walked past her and snarled, decided that this time they were going to have some fun. Well, it was only in for them in their twisted minds. Not a very appealing trait, especially if you're trying to get a date. These guys were probably on Tinder, Skylar thought with a silent laugh. If only Irey could hear her!

The guards walked over to her (though, Skylar has to wonder, why would you walk at least a quarter of a mile to pick on somebody?), and pulled the pic axe out of her hands, at the same time shoving her injured shoulder into the wall and laughing as she winced. If only she had her shrikens, the maybe these wannabe villains wouldn't be laughing at her; she'd be laughing at them.

"Whatcha' doing, girly?" The guard with dirty blond hair taunted, his breath smelling of alcohol and cigarettes, making Skylar gag.

Skylar wanted to retort, really, she did. But she realized that not only would she land the same fate as that 8 year old, but it was more likely to happen to her and Damian because of their age if they do anything that even seems remotely out of place. That, that just plain ticked her off.

Skylar's eyes beamed with anger, the green irises darkening as Skylar's anger built up, and she made a wild grab for the pic axe, but fell back down as she was unable to use her left arm, and that she had swung it around as a result of the jump and it hurt like hell; black spots were dancing in her vision because of it. Not her most graceful moment, that was for sure.

"Does the girly want it?" The other guard, who had shaggy brown hair and a cigar in his mouth teased, chuckling to himself as she struggled to get to her feet.  
Skylar, instead of just taking all this crap like she was supposed to, just sat back down to where get had fallen and flipped the guards off; they didn't take that very well, but then again, nobody does.

The guards growled on offense (that was a thing? Apparently it is...), and went to make a grab at Skylar when Dami hit the blonde one in the back of the head with a really well aimed throw of a pic axe.

Damian knew that he was probably going to get both himself and Skylar bloody backs, but he didn't care. Not if someone was going to harm someone just for amusement. That's one of the reasons Batman has to constantly tell Damian that mutilating people is considered wrong, even on Batman standards (really? Bryce won't kill people but he's been shown to give quite a few people permanent brain damage and paralysis.)

"Why you little-!" The cigar-smoking guard didn't even get to finish his sentence be was so angry. Not a good thing for Damian and or Skylar.

The others in the two groups could only watch miserably and helplessly as both Damian and Skylar were roughly grabbed by the scruff of their necks by the angry guard and taken out of the rocky tunnel.

The grip the guard had around their necks seemed to be so tight that it seemed to draw the littlest bit of blood, but that could just be Skylar's imagining things. Though, she couldn't really tell reality from imagination because the burning in her arm was making her breath hitch, the dots that had been previously dancing in her vision now fighting for the claim to domaince.

Usually Skylar wouldn't be affected so much by an injury such as this, but it's been a long time since she broke her wrist, so that hurt like hell, and she couldn't pop her shoulder back into place because it would hurt her wrist a lot more than Skylar would like it too. Basically that meant the dislocated shoulder and broken wrist it is!

A little while later, neither Damian nor Skylar could tell how long, they could only barely make out the fact that they were now in the faculty building instead of the thundering outside or the rocky and dangerous tunnels.

Finally, the guard threw them onto the ground, which caused a sharp intake of breath on both parties and a gasp of pain as well.

"Aren't things just...peachy?" Skylar gasped, thinking they were alone in the nicely lit room, before squinting her eyes closed and rolling onto her other side, and Damian blurrily saw that it was because she had landed on her injured arm, and Damian could imagine it hurt as bad as his ankle did.

When the guard had thrown Damian, he has went to land on his feet because of only pure instinct. Thus, when he landed on his foot, his ankle not only have out immediately but it also hurt like hell on a silver fucking platter. His injuries thigh also did little to help him in the long run.

"Well, well, well, I should've suspected the oldest would've made a stand. Foolish children." Damian and Skylar probably would've recognized the voice, but there were too busy trying to sit up AND deal with the ringing in their ears that they barely even processed that someone other than one of them had spoken.  
"Pathetic." Somebody spit into Damian's face, in which he really wanted to kick in the nut, a batarang to the face wouldn't hurt...Too bad that was impossible, seeing as he was in civvies and didn't have his utility belt and he could barely stand on his own.

"Idiotic." Said person muttered again, but this time he kicked Skylar in the ribs, knocking out her breath and really making her want to rip the guys throat out, but that sadly wasn't an option as she had to deal with the black dominating her vision, even though the sudden (and not so sudden pain in her arm.  
"By the time I'm done, you both shall remember the name Dragon..."

By then, neither Damian nor Skylar were conscious, the pain having overtaken them.

Soon enough, Skylar was awoken. And not by the sun besting down on her skin; no, she was woken by an intense throbbing in her arm and the distinct stench of rotting meat. Or, was that actually rotting corpses? Actually, never mind, Skylar didn't want to know. (Though, now that she had thought about it, the question probably wasn't going to leave her alone. Yay. Not.)

Just as well, Damian seemed to be nodding awake as well. He was woken up by the weightlessness he felt in his legs, but the absolute soreness if his upper body muscles.

His bodies internal alarms may have played a part in that as well...

Though, it was a good thing, that's for sure. Just minutes after Damian had fully come to his senses and realized they were tied a concrete pillar, chains binding his hands together above his head, had a group of grinning guards and a smug looking Dragon drinking Russian vodka had come in.

Damian could only imagine how horrible Skylar would feel, having a broken wrist and dislocated, after all, and now having to deal with what was probably going to be whip torture, although, with the way the chains were binding them, it would be rather un...Traditional to whip someone anywhere else bit on the back.  
Why he thought that using a whip to torture someone by hitting their back continuously a torture not meant to be tampered with, Damian didn't really want to think about.

"You see, children, these boys don't have a high tolerance for misbehavior," Dragon started, his voice not even sounding like he'd drunken any vodka, "And you can be used as prime examples to the younger ones if why they shouldn't step out of line. Now, boys, have with them the way you please."

Skylar tried to thrash to get out of her chains when she saw the weapons the guards carried, but only got an intense wine, a hiss of pain, and more sinister smiles as a result.

Oh, they needed a miracle. And they needed it NOW.


	8. Chapter 8

A miracle would be nice, Skylar thought with a grimace as the sadistic guards walked closer, yellow smiles and murderous glints of the eye showing in the dim light.

Today was SO not her day. And if you don't already know why, you're probably living under a rock.

Damian seemed worried as well, which should be a bad omen on its own. Damian wasn't really one to admit defeat, if his upbringing (that Skylar doesn't know about) has anything to say about it.

"Guess you ain't smilin' now, are ya girly?" One of the guards taunted, clutching a lug wrench like it was an actual weapon, which it was not. However, under correct circumstances, it could be used as one. Oh the joy of technicalities! Note the sarcasm.

"Depends on who I'm talking to," Damian interjected, apparently in much less pain than Skylar. Then again, she had a dislocated SHOULDER and broken WRIST, while he had only leg wounds. Now that, that just wasn't fair.

A different, but equally as malous, guard (he had ferocious brown eyes, so Skylar decided to call him Burnt Brownie), snarled his teeth, which were in major need if a dentist.

'Thanks' Skylar seemed to say with her eyes as she gave a curt node in Damian's direction, to her left. However, immediately after, she winced and held back a scream; why? A fiery pain erupted in her thigh, so Skylar briefly wondered if that was what Damian was feeling, before coming back to the harsh reality that she had just been hit in the thigh with a screwdriver. Why the hell did mechanic tools hurt so much? Actually, why the hell were mechanic tools so lethal in the first place?

Skylar gasped, which seemed like the next best thing to screaming. She was NOT going to give these sadistic, sick, mental idiots the satisfaction of seeing her in pain. Stupid stubbornness.

"Didn' like that, a now?" A guard towards the left of Burnt Brownie said, making Skylar seriously question if this Dragon dude actually hired intelligent people. No, he probably didn't.

Skylar glared, though she scowl only deepened to beyond murderous when the guards turned their attention to Damian after a few more painfully painful hits.  
You can hurt her as much as you want; but you hurt her friends and she will skin you alive. the only problem with that was that not only was she chained against a very old Victorian style pillar, but she was also in extreme pain, and the fact that there was nothing in the room (even the guards. Did they seriously only use mechanic tools as weapons?) actually had the capability to skin someone on short notice.

Damian also glared, and snarled in return to Burnt Brownie. Burnt Brownie's malicious snarl looked absolutely tame compared to Damian's. He did NOT like not having the upper hand. Or at the mercy of anyone but himself.

Burnt Brownie held up a whip, it's silver accents even glinted in the light, too. Right now, both Skylar and Damian were having a mental battle with themselves if the idiotic horror movie clichés or this guy were more cheesy. Currently, Burnt Brownie was winning.

"-tt- If you're going to hit me, just do it already. No need for the 'preparations' to scare me. I'm not intimidated, imbiciles." Damian muttered, though the guard in question apparently had better hearing than intimidation tactics.

"As you say," and with that, Burnt Brownie struck the whip across Damian's mid-section, to which Damian responded with a sharp intake of breath and silent scream.

"T-try m-me!" Damian retaliated, fully prepared to get a full beat down if it meant getting under the guards skin. It seemed to be working, and Skylar was thinking about how her and Damian were alike in that way.

She would fight, or even retort, until her last breath. As it seems, Damian was the same way.

Her train of thought was interrupted by a cold hand being slapped across her cheek, no doubt leaving a hand mark, and making Skylar's head turn sideways.  
"Don't think your off the hook, girly!" The guard who slapped her, who was also the guard that Damian had knocked out with a pic axe. How long had they been in here? That hit should've knocked the guy out for a least a days' time.

"I didn't think I was..." Skylar mumbled, but the slap seemed to be a last straw for Damian.

He started thrashing within his bondage, but winced and closing is eyes as he did so. No doubt all the struggling upset both his old injuries and his new injuries.  
"Not worth it..." Skylar was whispering, but as she gave Damian a pointed look that seemed to convey her message, he stopped.

Now that Skylar had nothing else to focus on, seeing as the guards had just left, she felt the impact of both her new and old injuries hit her, and it made her woozy. Not a good sign.

"Ouch..." Skylar was able to gasp out before the black that had been peeking out from the edges of her vision suddenly swallowed it whole. The sensationally painful burning in all of her body parts may have also been a deciding factor.

Damian, on the other hand, was examining both his and Skylar's injuries. Damian could see way she passed out; her shoulder and wrist probably already caused her a lot of pain given how they were bound, and Skylar now has a bright red slap mark on her face that made Damian growl in spite.

To accompany that, she also had a dark purple-blue bruise on her thigh, as well as a gash right underneath her collarbone. To top it all off, there was a gash, that had bruises lining the sides of it, going down the length of her forearm. Ouch is right.

Damian had, as well as his thigh and ankle injuries, a bright purple bruise on his left shoulder, and a bruised but not TOO bloody red line going across his stomach, which he could only see because his shirt was torn.

Damian briefly wondered how his team was doing, and where they were overall, but then decided to focus more on how he and Skylar were to get out of the situation they seemed to have found themselves in. Not fun, would be putting it mildly.

Eventually however, Damian DID manage to fall asleep, if only for a very little time. But whole now's how much 'sleep' he got while he was knocked out?

Upon waking up, Damian found himself not in the dimly lit, practically empty (save the pillars) room he and Skylar had been in when he had fallen asleep.

He was tempted to run his eyes, just to clear them of sleep, but then his senses decided to come fully online, and that was about when he started freaking out.

It was mentally, of course. There was no way Damian would ever, if his dignity allowed it, allow someone to see him act even remotely vulnerable . It was something that was drilled into his head by his psychotic mother.

Damian scanned his surroundings for possible threats, which was basically everyone he saw, and THEN took the liberty of actually examining his surroundings.

He was in a darkly lit room...no, it was more of a tunnel. Like the one that Dragon had those idiotic guards show Damian into.

"Hey, Dami, you alright?" Looking up, Damian saw Iris West II, and it was probably the first time he could say he was completely and utterly glad too, really.

"Do I look okay to you, West?" Damian snapped, obviously not on the mood for anyone's shit. But could you really blame him?


	9. Chapter 9

Damian was, as always, in a bad mood, except this one was amplified by 100 and then doubled because sore muscles and broken bones did more than just HURT.

He may have snapped at Irey, but once again, could you really blame him?

"Uhh...How long was I out?" Damian muttered, looking down to the ground in shame that he didn't even know long he was taken or uhh...Beaten, he guessed.  
"5 days. And that's counting how long you were with Count Dracula " Was the simple answer the came from above him. Looking up, he saw Scott, apparently one of the lantern twins.

"Shit..." Damian cursed, hating that he worried his team for that king. And the twins. "What about Skylar?"

"She's beside you, if you wanna know," Colin butted in, nodding his head where, true to his word, Skylar lay still, pale, and unmoving.

"Is she okay?" Damian asked worriedly. No, it wasn't because you liked her at all; he could really only stand her presence for a prolonged amount of time.  
"I dunno..." Irey mumbled, obviously not her usual happy-go-lucky self, and for completely obvious reasons.

"Have you felt for a pulse?" Damian questioned, narrowing his eyes.

"Yeah, it's there it's way slower than usual; it was a miracle you woke up in the first place. You were close to going into a coma," One of the twins, Eliza, Damian recalled, recapped.

"And by the way, you might not want to move for a while." Mar'i added, "Jon scanned over your injuries when his X-Ray vision decided to work; you have a gash in your ankle, a gash in your other thigh, a broken rib, a bruised rib, a gash going across the length of your stomach, and a dislocated pinkie. Miraculously, you have no brain damage." Damian was surprised that the Grayson Jr. Could even go a sentence without being optimistic like her father, but, here she was, acting completely out of character. And just as well, he didn't need to know what injuries he had; he already knew.

"Oh, and can't forget about Skylar!" That was Colin, with obvious fake enthusiasm, which eluded Damian since his companions were usually so optimistic. It was weird when they weren't. "Skylar had...What was it again? Oh yeah; she has a dislocated shoulder, broken wrist, a broken pinkie, a few broken ribs, and, of course, no brain injuries!" Now Skylar's injuries were more interesting than his own.

Hopefully, those broken ribs didn't puncture anything AND that was why she wasn't waking up. Hopefully, she wasn't waking up and her pulse was slow because she had given into exhaustion and there wasn't enough blood going to her heart (which is still pretty bad.)

"It's almost like magic that neither of you are dead. And especially that your awake, Damian." Scott pointed out, clearly hinting something that no one picked up on.

"And what are you hinting at?" Damian narrowed his eyes; he may not have picked up on what the other boy was hinting to, but he got that he was hinting to something.

Scott sighed, but answered nonetheless, "Magic. Magicians. You get a my drift yet?"

Yeah, Damian got it. But he didn't like it. He always knew magic was real -not the pull a bunny out of a hat trick-, but he had found it rather disconcerting. Magic may not have been his favorite, but it explained a few things. If this was the case, though, who was behind it.

"Are you implying that a magician -whom we have no idea who might be-,.is the one to blame for my waking and the fact we aren't dead?" Damian questioned, his eyes still narrowed. He attempted to sit up to make his glare more menacing, but was immediately pushed back by his surrounding teammates. Needless to say, he really didn't like not being able to do anything.

"I guess. But I might know who's pulling the strings..." Scott shrugged, which really made Damian want to punch him in the face. If there was anything you do NOT do when you want people to trust you, is to say you have sensitive information, and then shrug and not say what the info is.

"And that would be?" Damian hissed impatiently, not in the mood to deal with this lanterns bullshit. Maybe the ring will find an actually WORTHY person if Damian were to have a...slip of the hand of his katana in battle...Don't you think? Because this guy was seriously starting to piss him off.

"Alex Constantine." Scott then elaborated when he saw the deadly glare Damian was sending him from his position on the ground, and the confused looks from the others. "She's the adopted daughter of John Constantine, who's one of Earth's most powerful sorcerers and stands with the likes of Zatanna and Doctor Strange power wise. Though, she looks and acts just like Constantine himself, so we usually call her that to piss her off."

Eliza rolled her eyes, which was noticeable even in the dim lighting, "They didn't need to know that last part, you idiot. Anyway, Alex went missing a little while after this trafficking ring started, so there's a good chance that she's here and pulling the strings that'll lead us to escape."

Thank god! Damian seriously was wanting to scream with joy? Someone finally realizes that you get to the point and don't beat around the bush! It was a miracle!

Despite the happy dance Damian was doing his head because of the reliable info, his face remained monotone and he spoke, "-Tt-, well, them this Constantine girl better be able to find us when we escape, because I am not risking am entire groups safety for just a person that we don't even know for sure is here."

Around that time, the guards went by on their usual 5 minute patrol, and snapped at them all to get back to work or they'd get the same treatment that Damian and Skylar had gotten. The guards didn't even say anything about the fact Skylar was unconscious or that Damian was as well, 'unconscious'.

"Their right; you better get back to 'work'" Damian gave them a pointed look, and gestured to Skylar's limp body as an example, "Oh, and, if you didn't know this already, there is such a thing as working while talking, though I don't know if any of YOU have heard of it."

Yup, mortally wounded and not even supposed to be awake, Damian Wayne was still a rude twat. It was just on his blood, he guessed.

"Rude..." Irey muttered before they all grabbed pic axes and started to hit the bare rock.

For the next few hours or so, this went on in silence. Whenever anyone found a jewel they would elect someone to oust them all in a like by the entrance for the guards to grab (it was a very small pile each time), and whenever the guards ever decided to actually check on them, Damian would play limp and the guards would only kick him around a few times before they left.

Of course, the kicking cause him a LOT of severe pain, especially in the stomach region.

And then, about at dark, Skylar started to stir. Jon had informed Damian that they had all been stuck in the tunnel since the first day, the day that both Skylar and Damian had mouthed off, and were given a breakfast and dinner, however scarce. Damian had then noticed his thin they were all getting, and it irked him that he was almost completely unable to do anything in his current position.

The cages and cells they had been in originally when they had gotten to the hell hole, those were probably holding the newer children, and they were to be assigned tunnels and suck that were on the other side of the island, and the pattern would continue on until Dragon said otherwise. Or at least, that was how Damian would do it.

Snapped out of his revere by a snarky voice, Damian slightly wished Skylar wouldn't have woken up. And then he remembered that if she hadn't he would have gone through with this mission with a casualty on HIS side, and not the enemies. That was the one thing Damian was NOT okay with.

"The hells going on?" There was no mistaking that attitude; that was definitely Skylar.

"Well, Elliot, you just woke up after being taken by idiotic guards and tortured, even though both you and I probably shouldn't even be alive right now, to sum it up." Damian answered; he could see that Skylar had questions, but she just nodded her head and tried to sit up.

Key word: tried. The moment that Skylar's elbows even propped themselves up to sit herself up, Irey and Mar'i were at her sides in an instant pushing her back down.

"They've been doing that to the both of you," Jon informed the irked girl, without taking his eyes off of what he was doing, which was a miracle in itself considering how hyper the boy usually was and how boring the rock was.

Then, Colin called out. "Eliza, your turn. I think I found an emerald."

"Sure, I think it's about the time they announce 'lights out ' anyways," Eliza sighed, taking the small emerald from Colin and taking a lantern (no pun intended) before walking up the painfully long trail before.

Just as Eliza had predicted, the lanterns that gave them light went out; it was a trick Dragon used to make sure they went to sleep, Irey had informed.

"And when is the cavalry coming?" Skylar muttered to herself as she stared at the completely dark ceiling.

Unbeknownst to everyone else, there was a tracker and an SOS button on her shoe (it was a nifty gadget she had insisted upon using), that she had activated the moment she had come to the dreaded compound. The gadget sent the signal to either the nearest (hero) friendlies, or the friends of a superhero that was near her and also in trouble.

You would think that would be the justice league, considering the fact that there was two lanterns with them; that would send the signal to all the green and violet lanterns of earth, the daughter of Nightwing; that would send the signal to both Nightwing and Starfire, a speedster; that would send the signal to any good speedsters (which was quite a lot), the son of Superman; that would, obviously, send the signal to Superman, and the Batman's biological son; THAT would send the signal to anyone and everyone in the Bat-Family. Including the fact there might be a magician (Damian had informer her of this) near them as well, that would send the signal to all the friendly magicians that said magician knew, so where the hell was the cavalry? In total, there was at LEAST 20 people who got that SOS signal, which also had an attached tracker, so they didn't have to go through that part, it just didn't make sense the signal didn't send...


	10. Chapter 10Flashback

Skylar was in a tight spot.

Not only was she in severe pain (if you didn't know already), but she also had to deal with the fact that her SOS signal wasn't working, which made her suspicious given the fact that it was designed to hack, on its own, through any firewall it comes across so it can get it's signal through. And no, she didn't design it. She didn't have the patience to do something like that.

The guards were beginning to become suspicious, given the fact that whenever they check on the two groups she always plays dead. They apparently had the brain capacity to figure out hat, u less their in a comma, people aren't unconscious for that long.

Just as well, she was starting to get irked that everyone (Damian not included) was fusing over her and literally making sure she did nothing but lay on the ground and stare at the ceiling with the occasional sarcastic comment. Skylar could also tell that Damian thought the same thing; nobody was letting him get up and work either.

All in all, the day was shit and Skylar wanted to go back to Gotham to beat the living hell out of Penguin for getting her into this mess after she set fire to some of his guards. Really, though, setting people on fire is becoming a fetish for her.

"So..." Skylar drawled, tracing lines in the air with her finger from her RIGHT hand. She really wanted to do something, ANYTHING but apparently near death injury experiences made said person completely useless, which was just a precautionary measure used by idiots.

"What, Elliot?" Damian snapped, though it was clear he wasn't angry or anything at her. He was just fed up with the fact he wasn't even allowed to sit up without someone fussing over him and pushing him back down.

"Do you know where your brothers are now?" Skylar responded completely absentmindedly. She didn't care what she was saying; the silence was beginning to naw at her already thin line between sanity and insanity.

"-tt-You think I know?" Damian raised at eyebrow at that, "But, if I had to guess, Drake would be using his useless hacking skills, Todd would be shooting something, or more likely someone, and Grayson would be prancing around talking about how to 'make the world a better place'."

In truth, Skylar had no idea who anyone Damian had just named was. She knew he had brothers, but that had only been a speculation taken from the fact that Batman had partners that had all seemed to graduate from the Robin mantle.

"No offense man, but who the hell are those guys?" Skylar asked, clearly confused. Damian may have forgotten to realize that she had never met them before; or at least as far as Damian knew.

"-TT- Right. You haven't met the imbiciles." Damian sighed, and blinked, looking up at the ceiling with spaced out eyes. "I'm not usually allowed to disclose identities, but, Drake is Red Robin, Grayson is Nightwing, and Todd is the Red Hood."

"And...First names?" Skylar asked, trying to keep conversation. She didn't like silence; to her, silence meant death.

This time, Irey spoke up. "Oh! Red Robin-"

"Yum!" This time, Skylar couldn't resist the urge to do that.

"-Is Tim Drake, Nightwing is Dick Grayson, don't laugh-"

"Its WAY to hard not to!" Skylar laughed, but started clutching her stomach and saying that was a bad idea.

"-Anyway, and Red Hood is Jason Todd. That guys mean." Irey finished.

"Red Hood?" Skylar stated, "Mean? Nah; he's more unpredictable than mean."

Damian moved his head slightly to look at Skylar with questioning eyes.

"You have to remember, I'm a mercenary for hire. I'm bound to meet a few people every once and a while." Skylar informed, "Thats why Green Lanterns aren't to fond of me. Have you SEEN how the twins look at me?"

"Elliot, that implies an intergalactic mission scheme. That you'd work for anyone in the galaxy if they pay enough," Damian pointed out, getting bored.

"Who says I don't?" Skylar asked rhetorically with a playful gleam in her eye. "I mean, you have to get a reputation SOMEHOW."

"You really are a person of mystery." Damian stated absentmindedly, tracing lines on the ceiling in his mind.

"As are you," Skylar agreed, and she went back to the tense silence that brought back memories for both parties that they'd rather forget, yet both were to enticed by them that they couldn't bring themselves to talk once again.

After a little while, when the rest of the group noticed how spaced out Damian and Skylar looks, Colin spoke up quietly. "Are they having flashbacks or something?"

Unbeknownst to everyone besides Damian and Skylar, the answer to that was yes. Skylar was remembering a time in her childhood, where the situation was slightly to familiar for her liking.

~ _Flashback~_

 _It had been a rough night, and Skylar completed her mission, but only barely. At the time, she wasn't known as Lady Knight. She was known as Soldier 13._

 _Because her mission had barely been completed, she knew she was in for a punishment. Her assignment had been to kill an international terrorist who had been threatening the lives of many countries populations. Apparently, Skylar had underestimated this and had been a little to leisure on taking precautions. Which meant she had gotten caught and had to wing to from there. Not her favorite plan, but her most used._

 _Talia Al Ghūl herself had come to assign Skylar knew her punishment was going to be bad. The closest she had ever gotten to failing a mission before then was having to use 2 bullets to take out a target, and she had received several whippings for that, so she was REALLY not looking forward to her punishment._

 _"13, mistress Talia is awaiting your arrival." One of Talia's servants, an assassin who end by the name Hunger, informed her, bowing slightly as he spoke. Skylar was well respected, but that didn't mean the Talia or Ra's had any less power over her than anyone else._

 _Walking but quickly, Skylar couldn't help but worry how bad it would be. Hopefully, Talia wouldn't be to harsh considering she hadn't failed the mission. But a slip up was a slip up, so it was bound to go noticed._

 _And it had; Skylar was to be forced to sit in an empty, pitch black cave with no water or food for two days before she could see the light of day again._

 _It had been an experience that had molded the then 8 year old. Skylar wouldn't say that it had made her afraid of the dark; more like it had ...Made her aware that she should fear the things she didn't know._

 _The cave had been dark, and Skylar had heard the scurrying of rats and other various animals at least once every 2 minutes. The water that had been in the cave trickled down the stalgmites and made a slight 'drop' noise everytime it collected enough water to drip._

 _The fact that she had no food, water, light, or any other various forms of entertainment made Skylar want to groan, but she knew better of it and that Talia and Ra's were probably watching her every move, so she decided to cross her legs and meditate. Not try to find a way out or anything. It would probably only add 'whipping' to her list of problems, and he she didn't need that, thank you very much._

 _Dealing with no food had been a problem for the 8 year old, but she had realized that she would have to probably deal with y in the future and kept her month shut for once in her life._

 _After that experience, Skylar learned why assassin's who failed were never heard from again; they had been slaughtered and tortured in very creative ways._

 _~Flashback over~_

Skylar didn't like remembering her time as a child, but the flashbacks she couldn't top. Her oast was apart of her, and it molded her to be who she was. Flashbacks, apparently, decided it was their job to remind her constantly that she never even had a years worth of a normal childhood. If you hadn't guessed already, she and flashbacks didn't get along very well.

She had been taken out of her dreaded flashback by getting elbowed in the stomach, making her want to pick the living daylights out of whoever did. Apparently, it was Damian. Too bad she was physically unable to punch him. Then his nose would have been broken long, long ago.

"What?" She whispered hoarsely. She must've been having a flashback for a while considering her parched and raw voice. Not a good sign.

"Go to sleep." Damian demanded her. She had missed the guards saying 'long out cupcakes', so Damian had taken it upon himself to tell her. Actually, he'd been forced out of his own Revere by his group mates and forced to, but that was besides the point.

"Fine." She snapped at him, not appreciating being elbowed, but none the less made an attempt to sleep.

'Oh, tomorrow is going to be LOVELY, now isn't it?' Skylar though rhetorically before she drifted off into her world of nightmares and memories.


End file.
